Clean inside and out

Fr. Matthew H. Zuberbueler|
For the Catholic Herald

8/29/18

Gospel Commentary Mark 7:1-8,
14-15, 21-23

The response to Jesus’ impressive and compassionate miracle that
fed 5,000 (and many more besides, without even considering where the leftovers
went) took many forms. It was an important part of the way he set up his
teaching about the way he would remain with his people and nourish them — nourish
them in their souls. In recent Sundays, we have meditated on the great mystery
of his real presence among us in the Eucharist. Of course, all of that came
from the Gospel of John. This Sunday, we are back to the Gospel of Mark and yet
we are still in the wake of the Eucharistic miracle of the loaves and fish. It
happens, if we read back in Mark a little, that today’s back and forth between
Jesus and the hypercritical scribes and Pharisees occurs after Mark’s account
of the same miracle.

The scribes and Pharisees arrive on the scene with (what they
consider to be) an important challenge for Jesus: “Why do your disciples not
follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
It is reasonable to think that they had heard about the great miraculous meal
in which thousands of people, all fans of this Jesus, had disregarded the “tradition
of the elders,” failing to wash properly before eating.

Of all the possible responses to the miracle, this one, by the
just-arrived critics, is particularly sad. Even if they had not heard of that
miracle, their question undermines something beautiful and new that Jesus
brings. We can learn much from Jesus’ response. He says to them, “Well, did
Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written ‘This people honors me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.’ You disregard God’s commandment, but
cling to human tradition.” Clearly, Jesus is serious, but he points out that
their objection comes from a bad place.

Rather than try to teach directly the ones he has just called
hypocrites, Jesus calls the crowd back and shares with the more docile learners
a groundbreaking teaching: he declares that there are no foods that can make a
person unclean. To all of them, the crowd and the scribes and Pharisees, this
would have been a remarkable thing to hear. It was a teaching that
reestablished the real and original intention of the ancient laws. The laws had
been expanded to include all Jewish people and every meal rather than merely
the priests in ritual contexts. “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing
that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come
out from within are what defile.” In the verses that aren’t heard in this
Sunday’s readings, we find these clarifying words, “Thus he declared all foods
clean.”

The power of the miracle of the loaves and fish, coupled with
Jesus’ insistent but mysterious teaching about how we must eat his body and
drink his blood, offered his first hearers — and offer us — something very
special. Rather than live in an uptight worried way, seeking always to avoid
the many ways of becoming ritually unclean, Jesus brought and taught the truth
that the important impurity to avoid was the real potential for sin and evil
lurking within us. This teaching of Jesus helps us understand more clearly the
reality of original sin, affecting us all deep down inside. As well, it helps
us to recognize the importance of avoiding anything (in thought or deed) that
might stir up “the tinder of sin” within us.

Knowing the whole story of how Jesus chooses to feed and
strengthen us with his body and blood helps us to understand more thoroughly
his anger with the scribes and Pharisees. How much they were missing. Their
worries about food making them unclean were preventing them from understanding
that the food that gives life and defeats our sinful inclinations is none other
than Jesus himself.

Fr. Zuberbueler is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Church
in Falls Church.